Converting to Organics and a Spud.ca Coupon!

Recently I watched a youtube video of this girl's experiment with a Sweet Potato and it got me thinking about what I eat and what are the hidden chemicals used to grow our food.  If you haven't seen it yet maybe have a look now before you continue reading.

She's super cute (not that that is relevant in any way) and has a very interesting point.  Now if you read further into the comments on this video you'll see that the pesticide she speaks of has to be ingested in rather large quantities for it to have any adverse affect in humans.  I see their point and it is valid.  What I took away from this video is that I want to know what is in my food, I have a right to know and so does everyone else.

So until farmers are forced to start labelling veggies with a list of pesticides and chemicals used to grow them I have decided to eat organic as much as possible.  I've always wanted to do this but was really put off by the cost.  Wouldn't it cost so much more to eat organic?  Turns out, not so much.  I did a fun little exercise and downloaded my bank statements for the past four months and added up all the money I spent in grocery stores.  At first I guessed I spent $200 a month on groceries when in fact I was spending $300 on all these miscellaneous trips here and there.  This is based on a two person household where my roommate also spent approx $200 a month on miscellaneous food.

I made the decision, along with my roommate, to start a weekly meal planning system and order food from Spud.ca and basically quit my every other day trip to the grocery store.  This would allow us to purchase mostly organic produce on a budget and stop impulse buying.  So in fact by doing this we would save approx $100 a month.  At the moment my roommate and I are spending $35 each a week for our menu and I am allowing myself $15 a week for incidental groceries.  This does not include any restaurant meals that may occur within the week.

Shopping online with Spud was a bit daunting at first but I got the hang of it and our first order appeared yesterday in some shiny new bins with all the veggies and goodies we would need for the week.  This is also very exciting for those of us who love to have things delivered to the house *squee*!  I'm curious to see if organic food will make any kind of difference to my health and weight although I feel this venture will probably have more of a long term health benefit so I'll have to check back in on this issue in the next decade or so.

So in closing, with a little bit of meal planning, eating organic (and vegan what a shocker!!) can be done on an affordable scale for a little under $50 a week per person (I don't have kids so I don't know how much they add to a food budget).  So here is proof that eating vegan and organice no less, is not as expensive as everyone exclaims it is.  I highly recommend that everyone goes through at least a month's worth of grocery receipts and see how much you spend on your food.   You might be surprised at how much money you spend on processed food that you don't need which could rather be better spent on organic produce.  Make the switch to organics too!

Oh and here is a coupon code for $25 off (in total) of your first four orders: CRVAN-BALMEB

*mmm tasty vegan food*